A Brand New Sound

“Life’s too short not to live with passion,” said Cali Lacey, which is exactly how she approaches her work as Director of Marketing for Your Pie and her other passion, helping up-and-coming bands make a splash on the music scene. Lacey first entered the music publicity world while she was a student at the University of Georgia.  A marketing major in the music business program at UGA, she held internship positions with Cowboy Angel Music, Bonnaroo and AthFest Music & Arts Festival. She also coordinated benefit shows at the 40 Watt for the Georgia Theater, a historic Athens music venue that was severely damaged in a fire in 2009.  She also arranged for a Boston-based band, Dopapod, to speak to her Music Business Program at UGA while they were in town to play a gig, and after helping pack the venue for two of their shows, the band invited her to head on tour with them for a Southeastern swing. “They literally said, ‘Why don’t you just hop in the van and go with us,’ and I thought that was a terrible idea at first,” Lacey said, laughing.  “But it was right at the beginning of Spring Break, and I was putting myself through school at the time. They said they’d pay me, so I ultimately ended up going out on tour with them for two weeks helping with everything from running the merch table to handling the settle at the end of the night to acting as ‘tour mom’, making sure that everyone had a nutritious supply of gummy worms.” The trip was an incredible experience for Lacey, and she came back energized.  She decided to involve herself even more with band promotion and started doing publicity for Dopapod and a band called Consider The Source, who she actively promotes now. Around this same time, her previous work for the Georgia Theater benefit shows led her to the founder of Your Pie, Drew French, and an open position for a Director of Marketing.  She started working for Your Pie in June 2012. “There’s something about Your Pie that appeals to everyone’s inner creative,” Lacey said. She was immediately drawn to the customizable pizza brand due to the fact that you get the chance to express yourself through the unique and varied combinations of ingredients and styles available.  The same way that she’s drawn to innovative and experimental bands, Lacey believes it’s important for her brand to stand out and not get lost in the white noise of competitors. “You don’t need to be different just for the sake of being different,” Lacey said.  “But I think it’s important to come up with unique ways of presenting information, whether it’s presenting a show or a record.  Doing marketing for Your Pie is no different.  It’s all about figuring out how to present your brand message in a different and unique way.”